Follow TV Tropes

Following

Comically Missing The Point / Literature

Go To


Comically Missing the Point in Literature.

  • A Running Gag in the Adrian Mole books is self-proclaimed intellectual Adrian completely missing the point of whatever book he's reading. For instance, after finishing Animal Farm he declares "From now on I'm treating pigs with the contempt they deserve. I am boycotting pork of all kinds."
  • A conversation in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn between Huck and Jim: they are discussing historical kings, and when Huck brings up King Solomon, Jim goes on a rant about how foolish it is to split a child in half to settle a custody dispute. Nevermind that it was an obvious bluff, and the real mother would give up the child to save its life. Huck calls him out on this, saying "You missed the point by a thousand miles". (Given how Huck explains the judgement and given how he seems unable to give an explanation beyond "You just don't understand!", one almost gets the implication that Huck himself doesn't quite grasp the point.)
  • Angela and Diabola: When Diabola first enters school at the age of six, she draws a number of extremely disturbing pictures involving people dying horrible deaths. Her principal praises the pictures and labels Diabola an artistic genius, while completely failing to grasp her obvious violent and sociopathic tendencies.
  • Angela Nicely: In “Miss Skinner’s Wig!”, Angela sees Miss Skinner apparently wearing a wig and says to Laura, “Look what she’s wearing!”. Laura replies, “Sandals”.
  • In Animorphs #16, the team needs to get into a highly guarded area in a crowded office building with plenty of innocents, so Rachel, Jake, and Tobias distract everyone by going out in the open in battle morphs and...mopping the floor. Rachel, as a grizzly bear, is mopping; Jake as a tiger is holding the bucket for her, and Tobias, in his default hawk form, is flying around in circles making noise to clear the way for them, prompting this exchange:
    "Is that a bear?"
    "Yeah."
    "Is it mopping the floor?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "Have we gone nuts?"
    "I'm not nuts. It's the bear that's nuts. That's carpeted up there."
  • Arly Hanks: Subverted by the antique-shop owner in Maggody, whose sign ("Antiques: New and Used") seems to miss the point of an antique, but is actually Obfuscating Stupidity employed to lure in gullible tourists.
  • Ascendance of a Bookworm:
    • After having risen from being a commoner expected to be able to do everything herself to a status just high enough to be expected to have attendants, the time she takes to accept it, combined with a higher-up deliberately giving her attendants that will be reluctant to actually serve her, result in the protagonist entering a room in which her mentor Ferdinand is waiting for her all on her own. Ferdinand scolds her for not having an attendant to open the door for her for so long that she gets bored and points out she does know how to open a door. Ferdinand then tells her that his lecture was intended to teach her to act in a way that befits her new station.
    • Some time after the protagonist's status becomes high enough for her to qualify for eventually attending the setting's Wizarding School, she finds out she may not be able take the degree that will allow her to become a librarian because she was adopted by the duchy's leading family and has to take the degree that is tailor-made for potential future duchy leaders. Ferdinand then reveals that he is, himself, the holder of a triple degree, so nothing is keeping the protagonist from taking a double one. However, the protagonist considers that Ferdinand was only able to do the triple degree because he's The Ace and she considers herself much closer to average. When Ferdinand tries to motivate her by pointing out that if she's that ordinary, her dream job may be out of reach anyway, the protagonist decides that in that case, she'll become the strangest person around. Since the protagonist is a Reincarnate in Another World who has also absorbed the values of several social classes in her new world, she's already one of the strangest people around. Ferdinand is quick to point it out.
    • Within her first few weeks of attending Wizarding School, she finds herself at the center of various unusual events that result in her getting called back home so her guardians can get a first-hand explanation. When told that one of the factors in her getting summoned back was reports of her actions sent by her adoptive brother being incomprehensible to her adoptive father, she comes to the conclusion that the problem is that her brother needs to improve his report-writing skills.
  • In Atharon, after one of the characters finally gets an audience with godlike Avatars, one of the Avatars interrupts the life or death proceedings to complain about training the replacement guardian and how hard of a task that is.
  • The Bartimaeus Trilogy:
    • In The Amulet of Samarkand, when Underwood takes Nathaniel (newly christened "John Mandrake") for the Prime Minister's address at Parliament, he tries to impress upon him the importance of not embarrassing him in public. He tells him the tale of the apprentice of Disraeli who tripped on the steps of Westminster, falling against Disraeli, who tumbled and had his fall broken by the "well-padded" Duchess of Argyle. Disraeli then clapped his hands, causing darkness to fall and turning his apprentice into an iron statue holding a boot scraper, which anyone visiting for the past 150 years has been able to use. Nathaniel's reaction?
    Nathaniel: Really sir? Will I see it?
    • The Golem's Eye has this exchange after Nathaniel/John Mandrake has summoned Bartimaeus, though it is less comic than revealing of how obsessed is Mandrake with his affairs:
    Bartimaeus: Two measly human years to get over the trauma of meeting you. Sure, I knew some idiot with a pointy hat would one day call me up again, but I hardly thought it would be the same idiot as last time!
    Nathaniel: I don't have a pointy hat!
  • Bazil Broketail: One example occurs during Lumbee's conversation with Bazil while trying to reassure him that their campaign against Mirchaz is going as planned.
    Lumbee: We were never here before too, Lord Dragon.
    Bazil: I'm not Lord Dragon. There are no lords among dragons.
    Lumbee: Yes, um... Lord Bazil.
  • In Bride of the Rat God, Christine hears her Prima Donna Director call people Philistines for trying to ruin his vision, she thinks he means Philistines in the film, where there were only supposed to be Persians.
  • In Centerburg Tales Dulcy Dooner plants some of his late uncle's experimental seeds and ends up growing the world's biggest ragweed. When the mayor points out that ragweed gives people hay fever, Dulcy cheerfully states that he doesn't suffer from it.
  • In Chanters of Tremaris, Calwyn sings a spell in battle. Trout, unaware of her powers, responds with an incredulous "This is no time to start singing!"
  • In Charlotte's Web, Mr. Zuckerman describes how a message praising his pig has mysteriously appeared in the middle of a spider web, and concludes that they have "no ordinary pig." His wife disagrees:
    "Well," said Mrs. Zuckerman, "it seems to me you're a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider."
    "Oh, no," said Zuckerman. "It's the pig that's unusual. It says so, right there in the middle of the web."
  • Elizabeth Bathory in Count and Countess thinks she's being generous when she offers to let her closest servants have a nice, relaxing dip in her Blood Bath. She doesn't understand why they hastily decline.
  • Dave Barry in Cyberspace presents a computer-generated form letter in which the City of Milwaukee warns Jeffrey Dahmer that killing and eating people in his apartment may be in violation of the city's zoning code. The worst it threatens him with is referring his name to the Motor Vehicle Department's computer, which "makes our computer look like Andy Griffith."
  • Discworld:
    • In the Tiffany Aching books, Tiffany's father takes great care to keep the clock on the mantelpiece set properly. He does this by looking at the clock tower in town each time he visits the market, remembering how it looked all through the slow, miles-long trek home, and then adjusting the Achings's clock to match what he'd seen. (It's mentioned that, since he gets up at dawn and works until it's dark, it doesn't really matter what time it is, but then, why try to set it at all?)
    • A running gag in The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is that some of the more thoughtful rats think you shouldn't eat other rats. The more practical rats think this is sound advice: obviously you shouldn't eat a dead rat until you know what it died of, and you certainly shouldn't eat the green wobbly bit.
    • Here's an exchange between Vetinari and Colon in Jingo, the latter obviously having never heard of a firing squad:
      'I should imagine they'd give you a cigarette.'
      'A cigarette?' said Fred.
      ''Yes, sergeant. And a nice sunny wall to stand in front of.'
      Sergeant Colon examined this for any downside. 'A nice roll-up and a wall to lean against?' he said.
      'I think they prefer you to stand up straight, sergeant.'
      'Fair enough. No need to be sloppy just because you're a prisoner.'
    • Inverted in Going Postal Moist, when inquiring about the location of the Post Office's two missing chandeliers, he is told by a wizard they are currently in the Assassins' Guild and the Opera House. It's Moist himself who doesn't understand the assassins only ever kill for money.
      Moist: Yes, I think I shall put that off for a day or two, dangerous people to tangle with.
      Wizard: Indeed. I understand some of those sopranos can kick like a mule.
    • Due to the intense cultural conservatism of Djelibeybi in Pyramids, most people are almost literally incapable of questioning things that have always been the way they are, such as that the Pharoah must be interred in a pyramid. So when Teppic insists that his father wanted to be buried at sea, Ptaclusp imagines building a small one on floats.
    • In Carpe Jugulum, when Igor is describing how he can perform surgery on himself, although it helps if someone else holds the knots in place, Nanny Ogg thinks it must hurt. He assures her that he always warns them before he pulls it tight.
  • In Decline And Fall, Evelyn Waugh has a prison sequence where the Warden, convinced a prisoner's attraction to tools shows an interest in carpentry, decides to rehabilitate him by supplying him with hammers and saws, in spite of the fact that he is in prison for dismembering several people by such means. It doesn't end well.
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
    • In the first book, the mean kids at Greg's school mistake the message of the "It's Great To Be Me" video to say that it's alright to be a bully if you are already one.
      Bully 1: (shoving a kid) It's great to be me!
      Bully 2: Ha ha ha!
    • The Ugly Truth:
      • Greg feels that the girls and Rowley did this in regards to the egg sitting project; instead of just taking care of their eggs, they also decorated them and even knitted elaborate pouches for them. He has a point, as the assignment was to simply keep the egg from breaking until the next class and they get so imprinted on the eggs that they get sent into hysterics when the teacher disposes of them.
      • Gammie buys some LEGO bricks so the boys have something to do when she comes over. Then, to keep them from getting scattered, she glues them all together into one giant block.
    • Double Down:
      • Greg's mother tells him that he'll end up being a garbage collector if he doesn't think of a job to get earlier. Greg thinks being a garbage collector would be pretty cool.
      • When told that geese are scared of dogs, Rowley uses a toy that plays out the word "Dog" repeatedly.
  • Divine Diva by Daniel Gagnon. The famous singer Iolanda is dying; the President, corrupt head of a corrupt and crumbling government, repeatedly calls her, pleading with her to return to the stage and revive both of their glory days, and making a thousand excuses as to why the political situation isn’t his fault. Iolanda tells him she’s rejected her earlier life of hedonism and extravagance and at last found love, in the person of Francesca, the humble young woman who cares for her. Francesca bluntly tells the President his faults. The President, denied Iolanda by death, tries to instead win over Francesca, but without ever admitting wrongdoing: having completely missed the point of what Iolanda values in her, he tells her that he’ll gladly listen to her talk of corruption and starvation if she’ll only have dinner with him at a fancy restaurant. He gets the only possible response when Francesca hangs up on him.
  • Bill from Don't Call Me Ishmael! occasionally does this, for example when Razza asks him if he would rather make out with Aragorn or 'that smokin' elf chick'. Instead of confirming that he's gay, Bill proceeds to correct Razza and explain that Arwen is actually half-elven. She and Aragorn met when...
  • Invoked for humor in the Dresden Files book Blood Rites when Harry jokingly struggles with the plural for the suspected perpetrator, rather than the fact that there could be more than one in the first place.
    “We were dealing with a succubus. Or more than one, which, for grammatical purposes, I hoped wasn’t the case.“
  • Deuce of Edenborn is a bit of a Pyromaniac, so it's reasonable that his father warns him about fire safety before sending him to meet his cousins. Therefore Deuce is careful to stamp out fires caused by the explosives he slings throughout their house.
  • In The Elder Scrolls novel, The Infernal City, when Mere-Glim is told by Fhena that his friend Annaïg is still alive, he kisses her to express gratitude. Fhena is confused by this, since she's not aware of Tamrielic traditions, and was under the impression that Glim was asking her to procreate with him. Glim quickly clarifies that he was not asking her to do that, though Fhena simply wonders if procreation between them is even possible, since she's an Umbrielian with the appearance of a Dark Elf, while Mere-Glim is an Argonian (basically an amphibious lizard race). Mere-Glim quickly excuses himself as she wonders this.
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "How about some ether?"
  • In Great Expectations, Herbert tells Pip about his fiance's elderly father. When Pip asks, "What does he live on?" Herbert replies, "The first floor." Pip was actually inquiring after the source of his income.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: When Fudge enters the Ministry after the Order and the D.A. battle it out with Voldemort and his Death Eaters he catches a glimpse of Voldemort (whose return he has been very vocally and publicly denying for a year) and is shocked, then starts wondering why the fountain in the atrium is destroyed. It takes Dumbledore stepping in and telling him what he needs to do for him to actually act on the revelation, and it's implied his first impulse was to arrest Dumbledore though he couldn't since the Aurors accompanying him also saw the tail end of Voldemort.
    • In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Xenophilius Lovegood challenges Hermione to prove that the Resurrection Stone doesn't exist, Hermione scoffs that you could believe in absolutely anything if the only evidence you need to justify your beliefs is the inability to disprove them. Xeno agrees, but takes the comment as a sign that Hermione is opening her mind to his ideas rather than how ridiculous she finds them.
  • In Heart of Steel: Alistair has been immersed in Mad Science and virtual solitude for a decade, meaning that his social skills are almost nil. Thus, he considers turning his beloved's ex into a cyborg and making her a chimera for a pet are perfectly acceptable gifts for her. Her protests only prompt him to try harder.
  • In High Fidelity, Rob tries to figure out what his ex meant when she said she hadn't had sex with her new boyfriend yet, and asks a friend for help figuring it out with a different example. It doesn't go well.
    Rob: What would it mean to you? That sentence? "I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs yet?"note 
    Barry: To me, it would mean you're a liar. Either that or you've gone potty. You saw it twice. [snip]
    Rob: Yeah, yeah, I know. But say I handn't seen it and I said to you, "I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs yet," what would you think?
    Barry: I'd think you're a sick man. And I'd feel sorry for you.
    Rob: No, but would you think, from that one sentence, that I was going to see it?
    Barry: I'd hope you were, yeah, otherwise I would have to say that you're not a friend of mine.
  • How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: In volume 3, Prince Julius Amidonia complains that Souma Kazuya's offered peace treaty conditions to withdraw "make us look like a defeated country". Considering that Souma's forces soundly thrashed him, killed his father in action, and then occupied his capital, and he ran to the Gran Chaos Empire to get their help to get his country back, well...
  • How To by Randall Munroe, being "absurd scientific advice for common real world problems", uses this a lot. For example, in the chapter about how to move house, he first establishes that pushing a huge pile of boxes all the way to your new house is impossible due to friction, then says you could apply greater force by pushing them with a pick-up truck, but friction will still be a problem. The next section is a series of methods for reducing the drag of your boxes that amount to literally reinventing the wheel, while in a pick-up truck.
  • In It All Started With Columbus, Theodore Roosevelt, after reading The Jungle, grows indignant about the terrible way in which cattle are being treated, but, mistakenly assuming from the book's title that it had to do with Darkest Africa, "introduced a law providing that they should be killed only by sportsmen wearing pith helmets". This parodies the way in which the author was disappointed in the general reaction to the book. He had hoped his readers would be upset about how the meat industry treated its employees, and do something about that, but instead they were horrified that there was a high chance that human meat was part of their sausages and other foodstuffs.
    Upton Sinclair: "I aimed for America's heart, and hit its stomach."
  • The Tom Holt novel Earth, Air, Fire and Custard featured the best way to describe this in history.
    ''Missing the point with all the futile diligence of a blind machine-gunner."
  • Happens for a very short moment at the start of the third book of The Infernal Devices. Gabriel bursts in and says 'Father is a worm!'. Since the crimes of his father have been brought to light not much earlier, Will responds with 'Well, we already knew, but there are better ways to tell us.' and 'So you finally noticed.', thinking that Gabriel is referring to discovering everything he's done. Well, turns out, it's literal. Benedict had turned into a large worm-like demon as a result of the last phase of his illness.
  • Knowing Me Knowing You: Channy has been kidnapped by a stranger who wants her to be his daughter. He lists many reasons why her family is supposedly evil, including her aunt being married to another woman; saying that it would be wrong for Theodora Dappledawn (a rabbit) to run off with Eleanor Bramble (a hedgehog.) Rather than being concerned that he's clearly been stalking her and her family, Channy says that a hedgehog wouldn't want to marry a rabbit anyway.
  • In Malevil: Big Bad Fulbert of La Roque and The Hero Emmanuel of Malevil are having a pissing contest over who has authority in the region after World War III. Religion is their primary weapon. Fulbert appoints himself priest of La Roque and so Emmanuel is elected as priest of Malevil. When Fulbert announces he is appointed as Bishop, Emmanuel decides to respond with sarcasm and his own ridiculous claim. He digs out six hundred-year-old documents from The Hundred Years War claiming that the Lord of Malevil is Feudal Overlord over La Roque, with power over the clergy, and that he inherits the title and power by virtue of owning the property before the war. His friends unfortunately rally under the idea that they now have the "legal" right to overthrow the evil priest.
  • Mortal Engines: In A Darkling Plain, Lady Naga (wife of General Naga, leader of the Green Storm) is captured by Grandma Gravy, and merchant Napster Varley tries to buy her so he can ransom her to the highest bidder. Grandma tells Napster that she was thinking of skinning her for a rug, to which Napster retorts that it's Lady Naga's brain that makes her really valuable. Grandma assumes Napster wants it as a macabre paperweight of some sort.
  • The Mortal Instruments: More than once during an Anguished Declaration of Love, where Alec Lightwood seems more concerned with the fact that Magnus didn't return his calls and lied about his age than the fact the city is under attack and Magnus is explaining all the pain Alec's closeted-ness and his love is causing him. Leading us to this little gem where they BOTH end up missing the point of their conversation:
    "You told me you were three hundred! You're seven hundred years old?"
    "Well, eight hundred, but I don't look it."
  • In James Thurber's short story "Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife", Mr. Preble is planning to murder his wife so he can run off with his secretary. She is suspicious when he asks her to go down to the cellar with him, and he blurts out the truth almost immediately — and ends up in an argument about the selfish and inconsiderate way he's chosen to go about it. She's in the middle of a book and doesn't feel like going down to the cellar to be murdered just now. It's cold down there, and he's picked out a lousy murder weapon and makes her wait while he goes to find another one...and so on.
  • Matilda: When Mr Wormood demands a mirror to see his platinum blond hair, his wife hands him a powder compact. Mr Wormwood seizes it and spills most of the powder, and Mrs Wormwood then berates him for spilling her best Elizabeth Arden face powder.
  • Neverwhere: Croup and Vandemar are hiding out in an Abandoned Hospital, and Mr. Croup performs a miniature knife-throwing act with his hand and five razor blades, demonstrating perfect aim. Mr. Vandemar is not impressed, as "you didn't even hit one finger." He then proceeds to throw his own knife directly through the back of his hand, which neatly shows the supernatural nature of the pair as he does not bleed and the wound closes up instantly. ("Oh, Mr. Vandemar, if you cut us do we not bleed?" "... No.")
    • Croup seems to be disappointed about not hitting any fingers, implying that he couldn't even tell the difference.
  • New York magazine used to have various humorous reader competitions. One of them was to write literature and theater reviews as if by a critic who completely missed the point. (E.g., one entry panned Crime and Punishment for revealing the murderer's identity at the beginning, thus spoiling the mystery. Another reviewed a Dick and Jane book, saying that the author seems to be aiming for a Hemingway-like style, "but the effect is mechanical rather than taut.") This may have been inspired by a genuine review of Lady Chatterley's Lover published in a country sports magazine, which complained that all the interesting parts about the life of a gamekeeper were broken up by a tedious romantic subplot.
    • Which itself was a lampshade on serious reviews of the book.
  • Lydia and Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice are both thrilled with Lydia's Shotgun Wedding to Mr. Wickham, in spite of the fact that Wickham ran off with Lydia for two weeks with no intention of marrying her and left a pile of debts behind him, making it clear that he's horrible husband material by any standard. Mrs. Bennet, at least, is upset about the situation until the marriage is confirmed, and has good reason to be relieved that her daughter (and by extension the prospects of all her other daughters) is not Defiled Forever, but it never even occurs to Lydia for a moment that she's done anything to be embarrassed about, and she first smugly congratulates herself for the great joke she's playing on everyone by running off with the man, then later badgers her sisters to congratulate and praise her for her marriage.
  • Book 6 of Ranger's Apprentice has Horace tell Will that they need siege engines to throw dead cows toward the walls. Will wonders why you'd want to throw dead cows at the wall, and Horace has to explain to his friend that they throw the cows over the walls.
    Will: I don't suppose it does much for the cows' morale either.
  • In The Screwtape Letters, the eponymous demon explains to his nephew that, since there is of course no such thing as real love, God cannot possibly really love humanity, and therefore His professed love must be some kind of elaborate deception in order to preserve His power, and that if only the forces of Hell could figure out the scheme behind this deception, they could succeed in winning their war with Heaven:
    Screwtape: Since then, we have begun to see why our Oppressor was so secretive. His throne depends on the secret. Members of His faction have frequently admitted that if ever we came to understand what He means by Love, the war would be over and we should re-enter Heaven. And there lies the great task. We know that He cannot really love: nobody can: it doesn't make sense. If we could only find out what He is really up to!
  • Some examples in Aleksis Kivi's Seven Brothers:
    • Timo wonders how can the others believe Aapo's story about a fox and a bear, because animals can't talk. Juhani then explains to him that the story originates from an older time, when animals still could.
    • When Simeoni shares his alcohol-induced revelation, which includes reading the Devil's personal greetings on a piece of leather, Juhani in particular gets anxious about this story, but Timo comments on that Simeoni has learned to read during the journey.
  • A short poem by Shel Silverstein is about a boy coming to school and saying, "Durn, I growed another head." The teacher corrects his poor grammar.
    • Moreover, the teacher corrects his grammar by saying, "Chester, I think it's time you knowed, / the word is 'grew' instead of 'growed'."
  • When Shamisen the calico cat suddenly speaks (with with the voice of an old philosopher) in The Sighs of Haruhi Suzumiya, Itsuki is first surprised that it's a male calico. Lampshaded by Kyon.
  • In Donald Westlake's The Spy in the Ointment the head of Gentile Mothers for Peace breaks into a rant about how all of America's problems are caused by mingling with "inferior races" like blacks, Jews and Catholics. Angela states that she's crazy because "Catholics aren't a race".
  • Star Trek: Federation has a discussion of a Noodle Incident where Riker sent Data on a literal Snipe Hunt. Riker struggles to keep a straight face for a while, then fesses up and tells him there's no such thing as snipe.
    Data: At least that would explain why no one has ever seen one.
  • The Twits' house has no windows. Mr. Twit didn't see the point of letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry peer in at them. This trope is promptly lampshaded by the narration.
  • In The Unexpected Enlightement of Rachel Griffin, a long discussion between Sigfried, Rachel, and Nastasia, as to whom is to be allowed on their "Trusted" list grinds to a halt when Nastasia wonders why they're excluding half their friends:
    Rachel: "We're trying to save the world, not form a social club."
    Nastasia: "I thought we were forming a social club."
  • In Why Is Snot Green?, the child sometimes completely misses the point of what the professor is saying.
  • When in Why We Took the Car, Maik tries to tell Tschick that he is not gay, Tschick keeps doing this, which really pisses Maik off.
    Tschick: You're not gay because you're in a shitty mood or what?

Top